


dissolving like the setting sun

by the_embarrasing_garden



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Oneshot, So the others help, and it ends up okay :), brian gets mechanised and has a bad time of it, having a body is weird, i really dont know how to tag im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:46:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29176641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_embarrasing_garden/pseuds/the_embarrasing_garden
Summary: When the man awoke, there was nothing.brian wakes up mechanised and has a bad time of it, and the other mechs help him
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	dissolving like the setting sun

**Author's Note:**

> hello please fair warning that this has quite a bit of dissociation ish type stuff in it so,, yea stay safe :)

When the man awoke, there was nothing. Not literally, but that's how it felt. He could feel himself rested on a bed, but he couldn't place where the feeling was coming from. He was cold, freezing, but he did not know how, couldn't feel it in his limbs. Did he have limbs? He must. Yes, yes. He must have arms, legs- a head? How could he think without one? He decides he has to see-can he see?- what's going on. Where he is, who he is. A whirring as he finds that yes, he can see, as he opens his eyes. 

He is greeted by the sight of a room, its walls lined with cables, pipes and medical equipment. This- is this his? He recalls vague memories that he knows how to use these machines as his gaze sweeps over them, one to test the heart, another to transfuse blood. Yes, these must be his. Who is he? There is another person. Another? Is he a person? Is she a person? She has an eye patch. Pointed ears. He can see sharp teeth in her smile. She’s smiling... What does that mean? That… yes. That’s good. Smiling is good.  
  
“You’re awake,” she remarks. So he is. Is that a surprise? Should he be awake? He is. 

“Yes.” he says.  
No. He doesn’t say that. A voice that isn’t his says that. Who said that? 

A hand claps over his mouth with a clang. He feels it shake through him. Metal. A metal hand. Who did that? It can't be him- he isn’t metal, he can’t be. The hand is raised in front of his eyes, turned over slowly, as if the owner is in wonder. Metal, plating making up the fingers and palm, ball joints in place of knuckles and a wrist. Trembling. He wants to scream, but he can’t stand the thought of hearing the voice again- the sound of something that isn’t him. He wants to curl into a ball, hide from whatever, whoever this is, but he doesn't want to feel that cold, shaking metal against him. 

He meets the eye of the woman. She’s staring at him. Her brow is furrowed, creasing. What does that mean? Her eye is focused directly on him, watching as he spirals through his panic. She looks sad, he decides. But not as though she wants it to stop, not as though she’ll help. Who is she? Who is he? Where are they?  
  
Time passes. Or it doesn’t.  
  
“How are you feeling?”  
  
He can’t answer. Can he? He doesn’t want to. She walks over to him, something clicking on the floor. What’s that? He searches his thawing brain for an answer. A cane, it supplies, giving name to the shape she’s leaning against. There’s a sensation where he thinks his shoulder would be, as he’s still not entirely sure he has a body. Warm. She’s looking down at him, and even if his brain was working, he doubts he could place her expression. Brain? Why does that seem like him? No, not quite him. A little to the left of who he is.  
  
“I’m not.” The voice says, against his will.  
  
He wishes it hadn’t. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he awakes the next time, it’s to screaming. Not the voice, not “his”, someone else. He doesn’t open his eyes, wishes he could just ignore it, but his brain registers it all the same.  
  
“You have to fucking stop this- this- you cant keep making- You’re fucking mad, you have no right-”

The voice, if it continues, is drowned out by a bang. 

A gunshot.  
Brian feels his heart skip a beat. 

  
Brian. That’s him, isn’t it?

Yes.

He’s Brian, and he’s afraid.  
  
The voice continues, sputtering.  
“You have no idea what you’re doing- why can't you just stop?! You know- I know you do- you know what it’s like! Why do you want pain for us?”  
  
This seems to warrant another gunshot, followed by a heavy thud.  
  
Brian can feel his heart pounding, the panic coursing through whatever contains it. What is he doing here? Who are these people, is one of them dead? Why does he feel like this, unbound and formless? Is he going to die here? Again, where is here? He can’t answer any of these questions and that realisation sends another pang of fear through his heart. 

A scuffling sound comes from above him, and he directs his gaze up as best he can. It continues, his heartbeat quickening as he watches a plate removed from the ceiling, pushed to the side in a space above, and a figure drops down into the room. He tries to shrink away, but the movement feels rigid and wrong. The intruder pulls herself up from the floor with what seems to him like a fair amount of effort.

“So you’re the new- holy shit.” She cuts herself off as her gaze comes to rest on him. She looks young, at least to him. Brown hair, tipped with blue sits around her shoulders as she examines him with a critical eye through her glasses. She’s clad in a long black coat that looks about three sizes too big, billowing around her. She approaches him, eyes wide. 

“Are you all mech?” her voice is a mix of awe and masked fear.  
“What?” the voice again, unbidden, but expressing his thoughts well enough. Mentally, he pleads for his own voice back.  
“You’re all mechanical.” She restates, a fact as opposed to a question. He wants to argue, to tell her that no, he can’t be mechanical. He’s human, skin and bone. She doesn’t give him the option. 

“Come on. You need to get up and join us because Jonny will be back soon and it’s going to be.. Interesting.”  
He pauses.  
“Can’t. Moving feels weird.” It comes out plaintive and whiny.  
She scrutinises him for a moment.  
“You don’t have a choice.”  
Brian feels something press against him, cold. Painfully, he thinks, though there’s no pain that comes with the grasp. Before he has time to dwell on it any more, he feels himself being propelled forward, the girl tugging at something in front of- no. something attached to him. He staggers, unsteady, and finds himself on the floor. Metal imitations of limbs are splayed out around him, arms clad in a white button-down shirt and legs in brown pants. Copper hands and feet. He can see the intricacies of the metalwork, the fine-tuned mechanics as they move. He watches as a hand lifts each of its fingers in turn, and the other follows. They turn over, one by one, revealing well-crafted joints at the knuckles, plating across the palm. The fingers fold down over it on either hand, and he watches in awe.  
“Come on.” Her voice cuts through his wonder as she grabs one of the hands, and he finds himself being pulled upward until he’s standing once again, that icy feeling running through the left side of him again.  
“You can have as many existential crises as you need later. Right now, we have to regroup.”  
He allows her to pull him along through myriad halls, stumbling, still transfixed by the movement of the mechanical legs beneath him as they run. She pauses periodically, snapping her eyes shut and seemingly listening intently, though for what he does not know. This pattern continues, run, listen, run until they reach a room and she practically tosses him through the doorway, the door sliding shut behind her. He staggers and falls, skidding across the metal flooring. The collision rings through him, and he cannot find words for the sensation other than being like a struck tuning fork. His presence is met with three voices, all at once.

“Oh, fucking hell.”  
“That’s really something.”  
“All, sans heart.”  
  
He takes in the faces of the people he has suddenly found himself with, feeling their gaze on him.  
“Can you sit up?” this, from one of them, a hand extended. The metal appendage reaches out and takes it.  
“Ashes O’Reilly. Welcome to the crew.”  
He tries for a smile. 

“Ashes, introductions are my job.” A man, whose voice he now recognises from before, steps in turn to greet him. There’s a dark stain of blood on his chest, but though he’s undoubtedly aware of it, he’s either very good at faking, or simply not in pain. 

“Jonny D’Ville. Captain.”  
“First mate.” the three others reprimand him in unison.  
“I’ll be captain one day, and then you’ll all be screwed.”  
“There is an 8% chance of that happening, Jonny.” A woman with multicoloured hair and a book in one hand states, giving Brian a wave with the other.  
“Ivy Alexandria.”  
He responds with a nod. 

“And, that's Nastya.” He points to the one who dragged Brian here, who is resting against a wall, trailing her fingers against the piping that runs across it.  
“Hey, Nasyta, quit making heart eyes at Aurora and come meet the newest victim!” he says, voice dripping with false cheeriness. She flips him off.  
“And you are?” Ashes asks Brian. 

He pauses.  
“Brian.” The voice says, and he winces at the sound of what’s meant to be his name.  
“Brian who?” Jonny prompts, met with a shrug.  
“Don’t know. Don’t remember, i’m afraid.”  
“Hm. Well, Brian, welcome to the crew of the Aurora,” Jonny makes a wide arc with his hands as he speaks, gesturing to the room around them. “Unfortunately, you’re stuck with us forever.” A humourless smile.  
“Courtesy of the wonderful Dr. Carmilla.”  
Sarcasm flows off his words, pooling on the floor.  
A screen drops from the ceiling above them, nearly hitting Jonny in the head, and coming to rest at Brian’s eye-level.  
Jonny did not let me introduce myself. It reads. I’m Aurora. Good to have you aboard.  
Brian must look startled, or lost, because Nastya pipes up.  
“She’s sentient. Can hear and think for herself, among other things, so don’t be rude.”  
“Uh, hi. Hello.” The voice that he has decided must be his own says. Nastya suppresses a laugh, but the screen in front of him lights up with a :), so he figures it’s sufficient.  
  
He scans the faces of the crew, which, apparently he is now a part of.  
“How did I get here?” he asks himself more than anyone, but receives a response from Jonny regardless.  
“If your story’s anything like ours, the Doc found you dead or close to it, dragged you back here and made you into her science project. By the looks of you,” his eyes shift up and down, “whatever happened to you got you fucked up bad.”  
“So. I died?”  
“Yeah. And now you can’t.” Ashes says, like it’s just common sense.  
“I can’t- what?”  
“We’re immortal, far as we can tell. Got parts of ourselves replaced with mechanics, and now we can’t die.” Jonny sounds far from pleased as he delivers the explanation. The lack of understanding must be plain on his face, because Jonny gives an eyeroll, and a frustrated sigh.  
“We each have a mechanism, a part Carmilla replaced with mechanics.” Ivy elaborates. “Jonny’s heart, Nastya- blood, Ashes’ lungs and my brain. The replacements, or more accurately the process, made us immortal.”  
Brian nods, though it still doesn’t quite register.  
“And me?”  
This is met with blank, incredulous stares.  
“You can’t tell?” 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After some bickering about safety, Brian is hurriedly ushered into a room with a mirror. He stares, stricken. The reflection is wrong, a mockery, a lie of the person he’s sure he is meant to be. The person in the mirror wears a white button-down and brown pants, but that doesn’t matter. The hands, which he had previously gawked at in appreciation rest at its sides, shining and taunting. The hair, fine strands of copper wire, curled around its face neatly. The face- that’s the worst part. It looks almost right, almost his, save for the deep grooves down either cheek, coming to a point just before the corners of the mouth and stretching downward along the chin. The cheek-lines connect at the nose and continue up into the forehead. Each groove is lined with tiny screws, keeping the plates imitating flesh in place. The eyes are staring back at him, terror and bewilderment in them, mirroring the feeling in the only part of himself he can truly feel, pounding rapidly inside its now copper cavity, encased in the metallic flesh of a stranger.

“This isn’t me.” Is all he can think to say. 

Then the human part of him gives in, and he crumples to the floor. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time seems to drag on for Brian in a way the others don’t seem to experience. Without real measures of day and night, the passage merges together and he finds himself spending uncountable hours in the room that’s been designated as his. He can’t stand the sensation of his casing, his now body resting against the floor. He could get up, go visit some other room. However, it involves a lot of movement, which is far worse than any contact may feel. So he lays in the room too barren to feel like his, in a body far too wrong, and hopes that time is passing. A knock on the door startles him out of this state. 

“Come in?” his voice is scratchy from lack of use. It slides open, and Nastya steps in. He tries to cough, to clear his throat, but the motion just shakes him uncomfortably.  
“Hi.” He manages.  
“Hello. You..” she pauses, searching for the words. “It..hm.”  
He watches her, not exactly sure what the purpose of this visit is.  
“It has been a while since you left here. We decided someone should make sure you are okay.”  
He blinks, caught off guard. The notion that his new, admittedly forced companions had taste for anything aside fear or violence had not quite registered with him. Admittedly, he had not spent much time with them, but his assessment of them so far had boiled down to _senselessly violent by nature, familial by design._ Familial in a… sibling rivalry turned murderous kind of way. Kindness and concern did not play into this impression. 

“Uh- mm.” It's his turn to fumble for words. “Moving feels wrong, actually.. Everything does.” This is met with a nod, and a sympathetic sigh.  
“I think I have something that may help. It helped me, when I was adjusting.” She doesn’t provide further explanation as to her own experience, but it’s enough to pique Brian’s interest. Anything that’ll help, he’s interested in. It's not as though he has any better ideas, and as such, he puts up with the shifting discomfort as she leads him down the ever confusing hallways.  
  
They reach a room, and Nastya pulls the door to the side with a small flourish. It’s a fascinating room, the floor is cushioned, padding built into the walls. Various ropes, hooks and seats are suspended from the ceiling, with what appear to be steps, handles and levers protruding from spots between the softened walls. There's a hammock of sorts, suspended in the middle of the room. A control panel is beside the door, featuring dials and multicoloured buttons. He cannot work out what the purpose of it is, and looks to her for an explanation as he’s led in.  
“You aren’t the only one to feel weird about your body, Brian. And when your blood is made of mercury, sometimes gravity is too much to deal with.”  
With that, she presses a button on the panel, and Brian feels himself lift off the ground. As it turns out, the room is expertly engineered to function in when your body just doesn’t feel right. After a small amount of trial and error, Brian found himself navigating it with ease, the metal appendages he’d been assigned slowly feeling more like his own as he shifted through the space.  
  


This, as it turns out, was to be the first in a series of actions from the crew. Jonny had caught him staring down at his hands, which had once again returned to feeling like an outsider’s, and offered to paint his nails. Brain had accepted, and his hands felt much more his own with the adornments, black with teal on the ring fingers. “Sometimes, you just gotta make it yours again.” Jonny had told him. Ashes had gifted him a set of candles, and a lighter engraved with a heart. “A reminder that there’s light out there.” They had explained. He lit them often, watching the flames flicker contentedly. He spent much time in Ivy’s library, sometimes taking turns reading aloud to each other from anything they’d found interesting. Occasionally, they’d play a game where two random books would be selected and they had to combine the stories. Usually, though, they just enjoyed the quiet comfort of enjoying themselves near someone else.  
  
It was just after one of these sessions that Jonny posed the question to him, the entire crew sprawled on a large sofa in Common.  
“Brian, do you play an instrument?”  
It had caught him by surprise- he knew they each had their own, he’d heard them practising on more than one occasion- but he didn’t expect it to ever involve him. It had seemed like something the group of them did, and had been doing since long before he joined.  
“Yeah, I can. Banjo and drums..and i can work out how to use anything else.” he replied, trailing off as if it were something embarrassing.  
“Drums! We need a drummer!” His face lit up with excitement, scrambling to his feet. “Come on, then. I want to see what you can do.” He tugged at an arm ( _his_ arm) like an impatient child, a smile spread across his face. Brian had no choice but to humour him, unsure if he’d ever seen Jonny this emotional about anything at all. The others quickly followed suit, with Jonny practically dragging Brian in a sprint, he felt himself fold into laughter as they skidded across metal floors and into the practice room.  
  
The newfound delight quickly dissipated as he took the seat in front of the drumkit, suddenly unsure if this body would know how to play, especially with eight pairs of eyes trained on him. Nonetheless, he took the sticks from Jonny’s hand and began tapping experimentally. He stopped after a few moments, feeling more than a little stupid.  
“C’mon, give us something to work with.” Ashes encouraged, a bass now resting in their hands. Glancing around, they had all assumed a spot with their instruments, and were waiting. So it was all on him. Great. He sucked in another breath, and began to play again, focusing simply on keeping time. Ashes joins him, plucking out a few notes experimentally. He shoots them a small smile, turning his focus back to playing. A few guitar strums added to the mix, testing what sounds right. Flute, next echoed with a soaring violin. Jonny, through it all, just spewing whatever words come to mind. He decides to complicate his own part a bit, cautious not to throw things off rhythm. Then, as the sound continues around him, he allows himself to relax into it. He doesn’t notice the room going incrementally becoming quieter until he hits the last cymbal, and it rings out alone.  
  
Ashes and Jonny give shouts of delight, Nastya and Ivy leaving their spots in the room to clap him on the back, buzzing with affirmations, and a cat winding around his legs, purring.  
“Shit, Drumbot, that was incredible!” Jonny is beaming. Brian pauses.  
“Drumbot?” he echoes. Realisation dawns on Jonny’s face, but before he can speak Brian cuts him off.  
“I like that.”  
“Alright, Drumbot Brian it is, then.”  
  
Drumbot Brian smiles, looking around at his crew, his friends, feeling like _himself._

**Author's Note:**

> and there we go! :)) nice to have a happy ending! honestly this was really fun to write, I'm pretty terrible with oneshots, i either go way overboard or never finish them but i got this done quite well i think! comments and suchlike are very much appreciated, and thank you so much for reading!!! <3  
> (title is from queen of peace - Florence and the machine)


End file.
